Can Games Fly On Google Earth?

simoniker writes "A team at Intel have built a game prototype that works entirely within Google Earth, in which: 'Martian robotic spacecraft are invading... Your mission is to decipher the messages, and blast these Martians before they can suck people off the planet.' The engineers explain: 'Existing games we found all require switching back and forth between a web browser window and Google Earth. Our goal was to develop a game with all the action inside a single window, similar to a traditional video game, leading to a more immersive and responsive experience.' The gameplay is fairly simple as of yet — but could this be the start of a host of fully integrated Google Earth games?"

Brewster Jennings?

[duguk]

What about Brewster Jennings [brewsterjennings.com]?

Hell, that was on /. a year ago... [slashdot.org]

Looks good anyway, gunna give it a go.

Monkeyboi

Re:

[daranz]

Google Maps != Google Earth

Still, am I the only one who finds that putting a game in Google Earth makes as much sense as putting a spreadsheet program (although that happened before)? I know people love google, but what the hell.

Google Spreadsheet

[GanjaManja]

You may be entirely surprised by this, but The google spreadsheet application is AMAZINGLY useful to my research group. There is no other (immediately obvious) way to have 40 people upadte, view or make entries into a spreadsheet. We log our equipment useage on it, and it is basically perfect for this application. Even google's Picasa is Very useful for use to show each other problems we see on our devices and in the lab. Go figure, I can't believe we're using Google's Apps to actually aid our productiv

Fails to mention

[Dunbal]

Does it say (c) Google all over the game?

Carmen Sandiego

[mnmn]

Carmen Sandiego where are you?

Re:

[Non-CleverNickName]

She's having sex with Waldo...which would explain why you can never find either of them.

Re:

[Randolpho]

I dunno, but to find her you need:

1) The Loot

2) The Warrant

3) The Crook

Re:

[Will2k_is_here]

LOL, my thoughts exactly!

Carmen Sandiego would be killer with a Google Earth interface and all that satellite imagery.

RTS...

[7Prime]

I bet someone could develop one hell of a real-time-strategy game with google earth. Oh wait...we already do, it's called real life, but the only players are Bush and Chaney

Re:

[the dark hero]

Their current fave at the moment is defcon 5...

Re:

[a10waveracer]

Erm, not so much. Defcon 5 [wikipedia.org] means that the US is at normal peacetime levels. Last I checked, there wasn't much peace in the US Army...

Re:

[Enoxice]

Hmmm...

Risk: http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/10/ 0035205&from=rss [slashdot.org]

RTS: http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/08/10/ 1859252 [slashdot.org]

Though it does seem like the RTS link is down, it may still be around somewhere...

Re:

[Rob T Firefly]

I may as well mention Cyber Nations, [cybernations.net] although the Google Earth component is little more than window dressing.

Re:

[sgt.greywar]

Yes, they rule *your* life and all others like you. Think about it.

Goggles?

[fmwap]

Goggles [isoma.net] was flying on google maps months ago!

Dear Google

[SydBarrett]

Please put a Katamari Damacy mode in Google Earth.

Re:

[JoeMoma]

I'll second that!

Is done boys!

[Tei]

Is done. Theres a proff off concept with code. What needs more? people can start hacking this to make other game concepts posible. Of course, the limites are tight. You can make some simple games, for the sake to make simple games for earth. Nothing earthbreaking (no pun intented). Anyway.. I wish some guy make a "Defcon" clone :D

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

I quote with risk of being off topic

[Ricken]

you know what google earth really needs? ion cannon button
(http://www.bash.org/?542053 [bash.org])

Martian love

[nagaicho]

Your mission is to decipher the messages, and blast these Martians before they can suck people off

Eh heh heh.

the planet.

Oh.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:

[PFI_Optix]

The 3D buildings in Google Earth aren't nearly as detailed as those in MSFSX. At least, not in the cities I've looked at on both.

Re:

[Chineseyes]

Great I can see the headlines now Google Earth Based Flight Simulator Helps Train Terrorists News At 11

Re:

[LibertineR]

Megascenery (www.megascenery.com ) has got Google Earth beat, and although expensive, does a very good job of providing photorealistic scenary for Flight Simulator. They have most of the interesting locations in the US.

Re:

[tlhIngan]

Megascenery (www.megascenery.com ) has got Google Earth beat, and although expensive, does a very good job of providing photorealistic scenary for Flight Simulator. They have most of the interesting locations in the US.

Or just leave the Flight Sim game at home and just use X-Plane [x-plane.com]. With the massive global scenery (see the screenshots on the front page), they tie in at a massive 4 DVD9s(!) of world scenery data. It installs into a mindblowingly large 60+GB of world data. Mars scenery is just so small compare

Games and more

[FooHentai]

Sure. Games, simulators, business systems, educational programs.

Once virtual world software goes through the initial period of being peddled in various forms by various vendors, and the realisation of a mapped virtual model of earth starts being treated as a single data source from which other systems can draw information, then it could be channelled into a whole host of applications.

Unfortunately, this vision kinda falls down on one point - Unlike teh intarnets, which could survive and expand without needi

spoiler

[underwhelm]

"Be sure to drink your Ovaltine."